


Carnival Nights

by navigatorsghost



Series: Truce'verse [1]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Galvatron and Cyclonus aren't denying a damn thing, Gen, Kissing, M/M, Public Display of Affection, Rodimus is in denial, TFs as humans, but that's everyone else's problem not theirs, humanfic, truce'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-04 17:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15152261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navigatorsghost/pseuds/navigatorsghost
Summary: In a version of history where the Autobots and Decepticons are maintaining a tenuous truce, Rodimus Prime goes to the midsummer carnival with the Unicronian Decepticons, and gets... well, it's probably not the ride of his life, but it definitely gives him plenty to think about. (Human-TFs fic - not AU, though, just another temporary weapon-of-the-week mishap.)





	Carnival Nights

The lights stretched for what seemed like miles in the hot summer night, a million tiny stars twinkling and chasing and beckoning in every colour imaginable. The music was like a living thing, a jumbled mass of pounding beats and joyful voices and soaring synths and guitars that made blood pump faster and feet involuntarily zigzag across trampled grass in a gleeful poly-step. To all sides reared the looming, neon-drenched shadows of giant spider-limbed machines whose creaking struts and rumbling gears were drowned out by the carnival racket. It was high season at the midsummer fair, and everyone in town who was anyone was there.

Even the ones who were normally someone else entirely. From the vantage point of his new, human body, Rodimus Prime shot a sidelong glance at the three men walking with him and smiled to himself. Even in these organic frames, they were all so much _themselves_ it was almost funny. Galvatron a few paces in the lead, looking ready to fight the world just for the joy of it; Cyclonus on his commander's right flank, silent and watchful; Scourge following behind with a slightly put-upon air, and in this instance with his arms full of bottles of whisky, random electronic gadgets, three coconuts and an alarming number of stuffed toys. The sideshow shooting gallery owners had hated Galvatron: as if it wasn't bad enough that he hit everything he aimed at, he wasn't even looking down the deliberately rigged sights to do it. Rodimus himself had about a pound of candy stuffed in his jacket and several small cuddly toys of his own. He wasn't such a bad shot in his own right, and Galvatron had waxed generous once all three Unicronians had run out of pockets.

And then Galvatron stopped short, looking up. And up. And... Rodimus felt his internals lurch.

It was a ride. Well, he supposed it was a ride - it was big and skeletal and covered in vicious red and sickly violet lights, but it had really loud music playing off it, so it had to be a ride, not just some kind of errant torture device. It went... he counted up, sideways, round, down, and several other vector directions that resulted from combining the foregoing in new and interesting ways. It also in certain places put you upside-down thirty feet above the ground, which admittedly in one sense wasn't much more than head height but _it looked like a long way from down here..._

And Galvatron, with fire in his eyes and a gleeful grin, was already dashing over to it. Cyclonus took one look, cracked a smile that held more genuine excitement than Rodimus had seen from him all day, and followed.

Rodimus and Scourge looked at each other. The tracker shrugged helplessly, barely managing not to drop anything fuzzy in the process. Rodimus opened his mouth.

" _Prime!_ Come _on!_ " Galvatron waved at him from the foot of the monster ride, imperious as ever and with his voice still carrying like he was on a battlefield despite his altered form. "You're not afraid, are you?!"

...all right, that did it. He broke into a run, dodging through the wandering humans to Galvatron's side. "I'm game if you are, Galvatron!"

"Excellent!" And Galvatron's smile really did look more like honest delight than any kind of taunt, which made Rodimus blink. "Let's go, then!"

Conveniently, the seats were grouped in threes, and any arguments about who sat where were forestalled by the directive that the heaviest person had to sit on the outside edge. Which put Galvatron there, Cyclonus next to him, and Rodimus on the other end seat. Not that Rodimus minded that. Getting squeezed up against Cyclonus was probably manageable without losing his composure, whereas being that close to Galvatron was more than he wanted to handle outside of a combat situation... and he was grateful, as the thought briefly crossed his mind, that there was not even the slightest possibility of his being made to sit in the middle.

Things creaked ominously around him when he settled into his seat, and he squeezed the grab rail and braced his feet against the checkerplate beneath them. The ride rotated slowly to allow the next batch of seats to be emptied and filled, making the car swing slightly on its bearings as it rose into the air, and Rodimus watched over the edge of it as the ground dropped away from him. The slight change of altitude brought an unexpected cool breeze that tickled his skin and ruffled his hair, and he shivered as his body registered surprise at the sensation.

By the time the last cars had been loaded, Rodimus was just starting to think that actually, this might not be that scary. The view from three-quarters of the way up the ride's full height was glorious, the fair spread out below him in a blaze of lights with the darker streets of the city beyond it, a last few streaks of pink and gold still showing at the edge of the sky where the sun had set ten minutes ago. His eyes kept tracking the way the light reflected and sparkled in the glossy glitter paint that covered the car's shell, and he reached out to run his fingers over it, exploring the warm slick texture of the lacquer in fascination. His body seemed to have relaxed, enjoying the gentle rocking of the car as it moved with the wind and the vibrations of the ride and the shifts of their collective bodyweight... typically, in the time it took him just to get comfortable, Galvatron was already skimming the edge of "bored enough to fidget". Rodimus laughed to himself-

-and then the music from below them changed, rising in a menacing surge of heavy bass and glittering synths, and, with a shuddering lurch, the ride actually _started_. And any expectation that this might be a relaxing experience went away, along with what felt like half of his internals. Human stomachs did weird things in the presence of excess G-forces and while Rodimus had already decided he kind of liked the sensation in general, it was also _really really intense_ and he might just have let out a muffled scream.

None of his reaction was helped by the way the ride's mechanical components juddered and ground as they started to move, the instincts of a frame he no longer possessed telling Rodimus that anything that creaked like that needed to see a medic. But he reminded himself that human tech was different, that for all he knew this was normal and perfectly within operating parameters, and most importantly the thing hadn't thrown a track and catapulted anyone to their deaths so far tonight, so why should that change now just because he was on it-

-he lost the rest of that thought in a strangled, high-pitched "Aaaaaaaaa!" as the ride hit one of its terminal velocity points and spun down and round and up and over until his organic gyros failed completely. The momentum slammed him back in the seat and sideways, throwing his full weight against Cyclonus - he blurted out a "sorry", realising too late just how easily organic forms could be squashed together. Galvatron, on Cyclonus's other side, must be damn near crushed by their combined weight, although Rodimus didn't hear him raise a protest.

Hanging onto the shiny silver grab rail in front of him, Rodimus made a Primeful effort to haul himself back into his starting position so that he at least wasn't contributing to the problem. How Galvatron felt about having Cyclonus forcibly dumped in his lap was between the two of them... and Rodimus wasn't going to think about that. However, somehow resisting the G-forces only seemed to intensify the sensations that came with them - his stomach roiled and his head felt like it was going to lurch off his shoulders, and he belatedly realised that the point of all the screaming on rides like this was that it apparently helped to stop human air circulation systems from seizing up. Although that didn't seem to be as much of a problem for the other two. He'd caught a whoop from Galvatron that sounded - unsurprisingly - like mostly glee and zero percent terror, but Cyclonus was practically in battle-lockdown, arms braced rigid on the rail, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed, unflinching as strands of his long hair came loose from his ponytail and whipped around his face. Without EM fields to read, the emotion underneath that stoic facade could have been anything from mild irritation to active enjoyment and Rodimus wouldn't have had a clue.

The ride lurched alarmingly when it reached its apex, then flipped them over and dropped in a long, vertiginous plunge back towards the ground. Rodimus whooped rather than screaming this time, marginally more prepared and beginning to relax into the rush of the wind and the way the lights spun around his head as the ride did its thing. His awareness unwound from a single point in his own head to something full-body, something that embraced the speed and the motion and the pull of gravity, the dazzle of the lights and the roar of the music rising up around him, the warmth where his hip and shoulder were pressed up against Cyclonus's side and the Decepticon lieutenant didn't even seem to mind. Rodimus breathed and leaned into it all, his grip on the rail loosening slightly as he finally got his mental balance enough to look around him properly.

The rail he was holding was shared between all three seats, a single smooth length of metal. Rodimus's gaze was caught by movement as he looked down at it and he watched, not quite thinking about what he was doing, as Cyclonus's hand inched its way along the bar until it brushed against the side of Galvatron's. Galvatron started at the touch, and Rodimus saw him turn to look at Cyclonus. The two Unicronians locked gazes for a moment that seemed to hang bright in the air, an almost audible snap of energy and tension and _communion_ between them.

And then Galvatron leaned over - half twisting out of his seat somehow despite the G-forces and _dear Primus did he still not understand that these bodies would_ break _if you dropped them?!_ \- and kissed Cyclonus full on the mouth.

Rodimus felt a surge of glittering, tingling _something_ that reminded him of low-level overcharge, and seemed to start somewhere at the base of his spine and end around the region of his cheeks. He almost certainly ought to look away, but just hanging on felt like quite enough effort right now and so all he could do was watch as Cyclonus tensed, arched his back and leaned up unhesitatingly into the kiss, one hand abandoning the rail to clutch at Galvatron's arm. Even over the music Rodimus heard the possessive, fierce noise Galvatron made in reply, and then Cyclonus's muffled near-scream as the ride suddenly threw them over and down, hard and fast and wild, and all Rodimus could do was cling to the rail and gasp and not even think anymore about looking away. And the lights were behind them and all around them and oh Primus, Cyclonus was _gorgeous_ with his hair flying like that and his eyes closed in ecstasy, and Galvatron's knuckles were white on the one hand that was still gripping the rail and even whiter on the other one that was on Cyclonus's shoulder and Rodimus wasn't even sure _what_ here was making him dizzy any more. He shouldn't be this close to this, shouldn't be crushed against Cyclonus while Cyclonus was doing _that_ with Galvatron, shouldn't be staring-

-shouldn't be _jealous_ -

-and then another wrench of speed and torque snapped his head around without his volition and he looked out over the sunset city and the sea of lights below him, focused on the wind in his hair and the soaring feeling in the pit of his stomach, and told himself that it wasn't his problem. If they didn't care that he was right there, that was their lookout and he didn't have to care either. Rodimus threw his head back with the lights in his eyes and _hung on_ , yelling in sheer exhilaration; flinging himself into the speed and the energy of this, the myriad sensations pouring through this still-so-unfamiliar frame, the wind on his face and the warmth against his shoulder where he _wasn't being pushed away_. Who cared what happened next, what he was supposed to be feeling or thinking; right now he was _here_ and it wasn't like he could get down until the ride stopped anyway, so he was giving himself full and unrestricted permission to enjoy this just as much as Galvatron and Cyclonus seemed to be doing.

Just. This. Once.

By the time the ride did end, Rodimus was utterly dizzy and his throat was raw and he was windswept and _happy_ and deeply sorry it was over. He nearly fell over as he stepped down from the car - Galvatron staggered too, he was oddly gratified to notice, but somehow still found the coordination to shoot out a hand and stop Rodimus from toppling sideways. "Watch your step, Prime!"

The warlord's violet eyes were shining like the last of the sunset, his hair was tangled and his cheeks were flushed, and his hand on Rodimus's arm burned like a brand for the brief, bright moment that it rested there. And then, thankfully, before Rodimus could say or do anything reckless while he was still drunk on adrenaline Galvatron let go of him - with a quick flash of a grin that Rodimus could only think of as _comradely_ \- and turned away to rejoin Scourge where the third Unicronian had been standing back to wait for them. Rodimus let out a long breath, and then determinedly set off after him.

"You enjoyed that?" Cyclonus asked, falling into step beside Rodimus. The warrior's mouth was crooked in the slightest of smiles, but his eyes were fiercely bright.

"I." Rodimus considered for a moment, during which he veered several degrees off course - human bodies really did have _awful_ gyros. "I guess so," he said, trying to sound casual. "I've never really done anything like that before, but it was fun."

Cyclonus laughed, quietly. "I have."

"You have?"

There was a moment before the Decepticon answered, as he turned to look up with an almost wistful smile at the great spinning arc of the ride behind them. "Rodimus, that's what being me is like _all the time._ "

 _Fin_  


End file.
